Say it Ain't So, Joe - A First-Ever Imperial Wardrobe Two Fer

I want to first extend my sympathies to all of the folks in Southeast Texas who are currently enduring the most epic shock in recent or recorded history. I'll come back to that topic in another blog, because this isn't/wasn't just a "natural disaster," but no is not the time for that discussion.

It is the time, however, to try to unpack the President's sucker punch to the Constitution and the institution of the administration of justice. Of course, I could be talking about any number of raging dumpster fires set by the Donald and his minions, but in this case I'm talking about his pardon for ("Sheriff") Joe Arpaio. This is the self-styled Heinrich Himmler of the Southwest who terrorized anyone who might have resembled being Hispanic by ordering his deputies to aggressively round up possible illegal immigrant and then place them in detention centers, which Arpaio himself proudly referred to as "concentration camps." These detention centers were in the middle of the desert, and detainees were forced to live under the 145 degree sun with only a tent to protect them from the elements. And then there's their loss of dignity from having their liberty stolen by some jack-booted fascist thugs, who gleefully beat them while they were cut off from their loved ones and their livelihoods.

He would have certainly made "die Fuhrer" proud with his flagrantly ethnocentric-based abuses of human rights.

Of course, with pedigree like that, it's hardly a surprise that our Putin-worshiping, Nazi-lover of a President would extend a presidential pardon to Arpaio, whose terrorist tactics provide a concrete example of putting Trump's fear-based, hate-driven white nationalism into practice. Barring a miraculous growth spurt in spinal tissue among the Republican Party, this is what we have to look forward to for the next 3+ years. G-d help us all.